Web based personal directory

ABSTRACT

A personal directory system  10  has a translation server  40  for verifying the identity of a subscriber and recognizing the name of one or more subscribers that are stored on a personal directory of another subscriber. A caller is connected by a public telephone switch to the server  40  that accesses a personal directory computer  60  located on the World Wide Web  50 . The requested number and/or speed dial number are converted from text to speech and the public telephone switch automatically dials the requested number.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

This invention is a continuation-in-part of U.S. Ser. No. 09/054,681,filed Apr. 3, 1998, now U.S. Pat. No. 6,259,771, issued Jul. 10, 2001,the entire disclosure of which is herein incorporated by reference. Thisinvention relates in general to interactive voice response systems and,in particular, to such systems having personal directories stored on aweb site.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Telephone companies have long offered directory assistance service. Atypical caller dials a special number, such as “411” for directoryassistance. Often the caller who requests assistance is connected to anoperator. Recent advances in voice recognition systems permit 411services to connect the caller to a voice recognition computer. Thecomputer has a store of digital files, including prompts for the caller.In response to information provided by the caller, the voice recognitionsystem either identifies the requested subscriber phone number or passesthe call to an operator.

The operator and the voice recognition system have access to one or morecomputers that store the telephone numbers for local and long-distancesubscribers. Subscriber telephone numbers are stored in accordance withsubscriber data. Such data includes the name of the subscriber and thesubscriber location including street address, city or town, and state.After the 411 service acquires the requested phone number, the number isusually automatically announced to the caller. The announcement is acomputer-generated voice signal that gives the caller the requestedsubscriber phone number. Advances in directory assistance technologyallow the directory assistance equipment and its caller to interact. Nowa caller can choose to let the directory assistance equipmentautomatically place the call to the requested phone number. Theannouncement directs the user to press a specified key on the telephonepad or say “yes” if the user wants the directory assistance equipment todial the number. Often there is a charge for automatic connection.

After a customer pays for directory assistance, the customer maymanually make a permanent record of the desired number in a personaldirectory. The directory may be a book, part of a personal organizer,digital assistant, or in a database that stores information on acomputer. Some frequently called numbers may be stored in the telephonewhere they can be selected for speed dialing. Selecting a programmingkey on the telephone to access the feature normally activates aconventional speed-dialing feature. Then the desired number is dialedinto the telephone and becomes associated with an abbreviated dialingcode. When the user wants to call the desired number, the dialing codefor the desired number is dialed instead of the actual number. Thetelephone set generates a series of DTMF tones that correspond to thedesired number.

If the customer fails to make a permanent record of the desired number,he may have to make a second directory assistance call to find thenumber. Personal directories can be lost or the data stored in apersonal organizer or digital assistant may be accidentally deleted.Telephone sets with speed dialing have limited storage capacity. Perhapsas many as twenty numbers can be stored on a telephone. However, theinformation in a personal directory and the speed-dialing ability of onephone is useless if the customer does not have his directory or is awayfrom the programmed telephone. For example, the customer may forget totake his personal directory on a trip. Again, the customer is faced withplacing a directory assistance call to acquire the desired number.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The invention is a public network based personal directory system. Itincludes a translation server for interfacing the telephone set with asite on a computer network that holds frequently dialed numbers of thecaller. When calls are made from the caller's own telephone number, acaller identification module in the translation server identifies anaddress on the computer where the caller's personal directory is stored.As an alternative, the caller may dial a special access number fromother locations. Upon entry of an authorization code, the caller is thenconnected to his personal directory.

The directory is a site on a computer network, such as the Internet.Private networks may also be used, but using the Internet reducesadministrative costs. Each subscriber to the personal directory servicehas a home page at a site located on the World Wide Web. The translationserver includes a voice recognition or DTMF module for converting thecaller's voice to commands. It also has a text-to-speech module thatincludes a programmed series of prompts and responses for assisting thesubscriber. The subscriber gives his name and/or authorization code. Thetranslation server converts them into the universal resource locatoraddress that corresponds to the identified subscriber. A server locatesthe web site that includes the home page of the subscriber. Then thesubscriber requests the number of one of the names in his personaldirectory. The voice recognition module converts the spoken name into ahome page search request and locates the desired number. Uponconfirmation, the translation server passes the call to the telephonenetwork and the network rings the desired number.

The switch receives a telephone call from a caller who requests hispersonal directory. Dialing a special telephone number does this. Thepersonal directory system has a voice path to the caller through theswitch and assumes control of the call from the switch. The personaldirectory has computer-based equipment that includes one or morememories that store and retrieve a list of home pages for personaldirectory subscribers. Each subscriber home page has a list of thesubscriber's frequently dialed phone numbers and corresponding speeddial codes.

In the preferred embodiment, the home pages are stored on a site locatedon the Internet. The telephone company that provides the personaldirectory service maintains that site.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a schematic description of the personal directory system.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

FIG. 1 shows a personal directory system 10. There are a number ofsubscribers 12, 14 who can call other subscribers 32, 34. Thesubscribers are part of a telephone network 100 that includes one ormore switches 20. The switches 20 connect one of the calling subscriber12, 14 to one of the called subscriber 32, 34 in a conventional manner.Those skilled in the art will understand that the telephone network 100is representative of local, national, and international telephonesystems and combinations of such systems. The following explanation willassign certain functions and operations to a telephone company. Thoseskilled in the art will understand that the telephone company may be anyone of the many companies that now provide telephone services, includingwired and wireless service.

The telephone network 100 is interfaced and coupled to a computernetwork 50 via a translation server 40. The translation server 40 is acomputer with a central processing unit 47, a memory 48 that includesrandom access memory, read only memory and mass storage memory. Includedin the mass storage memory are addresses of the personal directories ofthe subscribers 12, 14. The translation server 40 receives calls fromsubscribers 12, 14 seeking their personal directory. The server 40 has acaller identification module 41 or program that recognizes the telephonenumber of the calling subscriber 12, 14. The server 40 then compares theidentity of the caller to a number of universal resource locationaddresses that are stored in its memory. When the server 40 matches thecaller 12, 14 to the URL corresponding to the caller, the serveraccesses the URL on the computer network 50.

The computer network 50 is typically a wide area, public access network,such as the World Wide Web (WWW) of the Internet. The Internet 50 hasone or more personal directory servers 60 that hold the URLs of theaddresses stored in the translation server. Each server 60 has a centralprocessing unit (CPU) 67 and memory 68 (RAM and ROM) for holdingoperating and applications programs and data corresponding to homepages61, 62 of subscribers 12, 14. Upon accessing the homepage, the server 60searches for the telephone number desired by the subscriber andtransmits the number to the translation server 40 over the WWW 50.

Each home page 61, 62 stores a personal directory of the respectivesubscribers 12, 14 along with speed dial codes for each entry. Forexample, the subscriber may store the number of a first-called party 32with a speed dial code, such as *88 and the telephone number of a secondcalled party 34 with speed dial code *92. The stored number is suppliedto the switch 20 to complete the call.

Translation server 40 has several user-friendly modules to assistcallers 12, 14. These modules include a voice recognition module 42 anda text-to-speech module 44. The modules include analog-to-digitalconverters for input voice signals into digital signals that can berecognized by voice recognition module 42. Likewise, theanalog-to-digital converters convert digital signals corresponding totext from the URL locations to voice signals so that the caller willreceive the desired number and speed dial code. A telephone company thatoperates the telephone network 100 maintains the personal directoryserver 60. Operators 70 and individuals with a Web browser 72 can accessthe Web site 60 to update the individual homepages 61, 62. The operators70 can update the speed dial codes associated with the numbers found onthe homepages 61, 62.

In operation, a caller 12 dials a personal directory telephone numberfor the translation server 40. When the server 40 answers, its calleridentification module recognizes the calling party as subscriber 12. Thecaller identification module 41 verifies that the calling party is asubscriber to the personal directory service. The identity of thesubscriber is verified by the subscriber supplying a password or byother conventional means. The server 40 looks up the URL for caller 12and accesses the homepage 61 on the personal directory server 60. Thetranslation server 40 then executes a series of voice prompts andresponses to ascertain the identity of the party the subscriber 12 iscalling. For example, the server 100 will begin with a voice prompt suchas “Please tell me the name of the party you are calling.” In response,the subscriber speaks the name of subscriber 32. Let us assume the nameis “Don North.” The voice recognition module 42 translates the spokenname of the subscriber into digital signals corresponding to the nameson the directory of homepage 61. The server 60 provides the telephonenumber and/or the speed dial code of the called party 32 to the switch20. The translation server 40 issues a confirmation voice prompt, suchas “Confirm that the party you are calling is Don North by pressing 1”and the server 40 passes the number to the switch 20 which dials DonNorth's telephone number. The translation server 40 in any voiceoperated Internet protocol (VOIP) or switch 20 in the public servicetelephone network (PSTN) network dials the dumber of Don North.

Having thus described the general embodiments of the invention, thoseskilled in the art will appreciate that further changes additions,alterations and deletions may be made to the embodiments withoutdeparting from the spirit and the scope of the invention as set forth inthe following claims. Those skilled in the art understand that theswitch 20 is found in existing equipment such as the DMS 100/200manufactured by Northern Telecom. Those skilled in the art will alsoappreciate that the disclosed system may also include a directoryassistance system that locates desired numbers and then stores thelocated number on the personal directory of the subscriber.

What is claimed:
 1. A personal directory system comprising: atranslation server, responsive to a caller, for searching a plurality ofstored computer addresses using caller identification informationcollected by a caller identification module for a computer addresscorresponding to the caller and establishing a connection, via acomputer network, with the corresponding address; and a personaldirectory server, associated with the corresponding address andresponsive to the translation server, for storing a plurality ofpersonal directories, each personal directory comprised of personaldirectory entries, at least one of said personal directory entries beingpopulated by the user, and for accessing a personal directorycorresponding to the caller whereby a selected directory entry isprovided to the caller from the personal directory corresponding to thecaller.
 2. The system of claim 1 wherein the computer network is a widearea network.
 3. The system of claim 1 wherein the computer networkincludes a World Wide Web.
 4. The system of claim 1 further comprisingtext-to-speech means, responsive to the personal directory server, forconverting the selected personal directory entry to at least one of aname or telephone number.
 5. The system of claim 1 further comprisingvoice recognition means responsive to the caller, for recognizing theselected a personal directory entry spoken by the caller.
 6. The systemof claim 1 further comprising caller identification means, responsive tothe caller, for identifying the caller to the translation server forassociation with a stored computer address.
 7. The system of claim 1further comprising means, responsive to the personal directory server,for automatically dialing the selected personal directory entry.
 8. Amethod for automatically dialing a telephone number on a publictelephone network from a personal directory stored on a computer networkcomprising the steps of: establishing a voice path from a personaldirectory subscriber to a translation server that holds an address for apersonal directory of the subscriber; searching a memory in thetranslation server using caller identification information collected bya caller identification module for a computer network address of thepersonal directory of the subscriber; connecting the translation serverto said computer network address; storing at the computer networkaddress in a personal directory a plurality of pairs of names of othersubscribers and their corresponding telephone numbers, at least one ofsaid plurality of pairs being populated by the caller; retrieving fromthe personal directory a desired telephone number; and automaticallydialing the retrieved number.
 9. The method of claim 8 comprising afurther step of accessing the personal directory of the subscriber formodification of the pairs of stored names and telephone numbers.
 10. Themethod of claim 8 comprising the further step of verifying the identityof a caller before accessing the personal directory of the subscriber.11. A translation server adapted to be connected to a public telephonenetwork switch and to a computer network, the translation servercomprising means for receiving a call from the switch requesting asubscriber's personal directory, said personal directory containing atleast one directory entry populated by said subscriber, means forstoring computer network addresses of personal directories ofsubscribers, means for searching said stored addresses for the addressof the personal directories on the computer network and for transmittinga telephone number to the switch, said translation server furthercomprising a caller identification module for verifying the identity ofthe subscriber.
 12. The translation server of claim 11 furthercomprising a voice recognition module for recognizing an entry in thepersonal directory when the entry is spoken by a caller.
 13. Thetranslation server of claim 11 further comprising means for supplying arequested personal directory number to the switch.
 14. A translationserver comprising: an interface for enabling communication with acaller; means for storing a plurality of computer addresses; means forsearching the stored computer addresses using caller identificationinformation collected by a caller identification module for a computeraddress stored by the caller; and means, responsive to the means forstoring, for establishing a connection with the computer addresscorresponding to the caller.
 15. The translation server of claim 14further comprising voice recognition means, responsive to the caller,for recognizing a selected directory entry stored at the computer spokenby the caller.
 16. The translation server of claim 15 further comprisinga text-to-speech means for converting the selected directory entry to aformat recognizable to the caller.
 17. A personal directory servercomprising: means for storing a plurality of personal directories, eachpersonal directory including a plurality of personal directory entries,wherein at least one of said personal directory entries includes atelephone number provided by a subscriber associated with the personaldirectory; means for associating a caller with one of the personaldirectories using caller identification information collected by acaller identification module; and means for corresponding one of thepersonal directory entries with a selected personal directory entryprovided by the caller.
 18. The personal directory server of claim 17further comprising means for connecting, responsive to the correspondingpersonal directory entry, for establishing a connection between thecaller and the selected personal directory entry.
 19. A method ofconnecting a caller with a telephone comprising: associating a computeraddress with a caller using caller identification information collectedby a caller identification module; establishing a connection between thecaller and the computer address via a computer network; accessing apersonal directory corresponding to the caller; and retrieving aselected personal directory entry from the caller's personal directoryin response to the caller, the personal directory entry including atelephone number previously provided by the caller.
 20. The method ofclaim 17 further comprising establishing a voice path between the callerand the selected personal directory entry.
 21. The method of claim 17wherein the step of associating includes searching a plurality of storedcomputer addresses for a computer address corresponding to the caller.22. The method of claim 21 wherein the step of associating furthercomprises identifying the caller.
 23. A method of connecting a callerwith a telephone comprising: associating a computer address with acaller, said step of associating a computer address comprising:searching a plurality of stored computer addresses for a computeraddress corresponding to the caller; and identifying the callerestablishing a connection between the caller and the computer addressvia a computer network; accessing a personal directory corresponding tothe caller; and retrieving a selected personal directory entry from thecaller's personal directory in response to the caller, the personaldirectory entry including a telephone number previously provided by thecaller; and wherein the step of identifying comprises distinguishing thecaller using caller ID.
 24. The method of claim 23 wherein the step ofsearching further comprises comparing the caller ID for a storedcomputer address corresponding to the caller ID.